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Bing Maps beef up 165TB of current images of Earth

Tue, 26/06/2012 - 14:27 by RESHMI CHAKRAVORTY

165 terabytes of new birds-eye-view satellite shots of locations all over the Earth, from the Moroccan Mountains to Egypt's pyramids of Giza to the Extraterrestrial Highway in the U.S are on offer by Microsoft's Bing.

This is Microsoft's mapping engine's largest satellite data release ever. Before today, Bing Map's total amount of data was 129TB. So, what can be seen on the search engine's maps has now more than doubled in size.
"This release features imagery over North America, South America, Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia," Bing wrote in a blog post today. "The total area covered in this data release is nearly 38 million square kilometers."

Besides satellites or aircraft photography, Global Ortho photography on Bing Maps covers 9.54 million square kilometers, capturing 160 "Areas of Interest" that include landmarks, monuments, and generally attractive bits of terrain. Bing has themselves out numbered their database's previous total of 129 terabytes. When Microsoft-owned Bing launched its Global Ortho Project one year ago, the search engine team acknowledged the challenge for consumers and organizations using Web-mapping services; "Much of the imagery featured there has historically been patchwork of satellite and aerial imagery of different vintage, quality, clarity, and detail," Microsoft said in June 2011.

Bing says that as of this month, it completed 100 percent of aerial photography of the U.S. and is planning to finish Europe by the end of the year.

"People using Bing Maps and applications built on the Bing Maps platform ... can trust Bing Maps to provide the same experience regardless of where they search," the blog said.

"Equally important," Microsoft said," is that "wherever you are exploring in Bing Maps, you are likely to find CURRENT imagery."

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